


Puppet Philosophy

by sunkelles



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Motivation centric, Questions of Morality, Set Between Seasons one and two, Zatanna: Shades of the Past, a fic no one wanted but me, character centric, friendship centric, past supermartian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 23:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10261895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: After Zatanna freezes up in a fight against Ventriloquist because of her fear of puppets, Black Canary insists that they get to the bottom of the fear. Zatanna and M’gann venture into her memories, and uncover memories and new scandals.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The event that this fic depends on comes from a Zatanna: Shades of the Past. I read that last weekend and it was great. I would recommend it.  
> 2\. this is tagged with pairings, but they just inform the story. The story does not really focus on the pairings, so if you’re here solely here for one of them and not plot or Zatanna character study or her platonic interactions you're not gonna find what you're looking for  
> 3\. Also, if you’re looking for a frame of reference on the Zatanna/Raquel, my fic “Pair the Spares” works as good background. I don’t specifically reference it or anything but I think that it informed the way I thought of the relationship in this fic.

Zatanna isn’t afraid of many things. She’s fought supervillains. She’s lost her father to a Lord of Order. She’s almost died numerous times. Not many things phase her, because she’s been through a lot.

 

She does have one irrational, unexplained fear. For some reason, she’s terrified of puppets. Little wooden people with their dead eyes and their little wooden limbs held up by strings. One time Artemis forced her to watch that Goosebumps with the living murder marionette, and she’d almost come out of her skin.

 

For the most part, it’s been an innocuous fear. It’s not a fear like shot that comes up every time vaccination season rolls around, or heights, that comes up every time they’re fighting a villain on a rooftop. She could have a lot of worse irrational fears, in the grand scheme of things.

 

Until, of course, she goes on a mission against Ventriloquist. Until she freezes up and the Team has to save her from certain death, and Raquel has to physically fly her out of there. It goes about as well as she could have expected afterwards. Some of her teammates yell at her, some of them yell at the people yelling at her, and she thinks that little Beast Boy is just yelling to feel included. Nothing productive really happens except for benching her until Dinah puts her through a psych eval.

 

Hooray.

 

So that’s how she got here, sitting in Dinah’s nearly permanent psychologist office at the Cave, in a comfortable chair across from Black Canary herself .

“So,” Dinah says, “what happened out there?”

“I froze up,” Zatanna says.

“You did,” Dinah says, “but why?”

“I’m afraid of puppets,” Zatanna says, “I just always kind of have been. It’s a really irrational thing. I don’t understand, but I just- I couldn’t fight Ventriloquist.” She’s expecting a slap on the wrist and a ban from anymore Ventriloquist missions. She’s not expecting what Dinah says next.

“Most people like us don’t have completely irrational fears, Zatanna.”

“What are you implying?” Zatanna asks.

“Most people don’t develop fears that powerful from nowhere, Zatanna. Especially not people as accustomed as we are to dealing with fear. Think of the other members of the Team.” Zatanna takes a moment to think about it. Dick has a terrible fear of heights, but that’s because his parents died falling from a trapeze. Conner is claustrophobic because of the time he spent in the pod.

“I still don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any puppet related trauma in my past.”

“That you know of.” Zatanna raises an eyebrow.

“Zatanna,” Dinah says, “people often suppress memories that they don’t want to keep. Whatever this is, it’s deeply seeded.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Zatanna asks. “I can’t get over something I don’t remember.”

“Maybe you can,” Dinah says. Zatanna looks to the clock in the corner of the room. She’s already been in here thirty minutes. She didn’t want to come at all, and now it seems like she’ll be here way longer than she’d planned.

“Are you close to M’gann?” Dinah asks.

“Kind of,” Zatanna admits. She’s always wanted to be closer to M’gann than she was. M’gann was always such good friends with Artemis, and once Zatanna caught feelings for Artemis and started avoiding her she didn’t end up spending much time with M’gann. Even though they lived together, they didn’t spend a whole lot of time together, especially since Conner lived with them as well. (And then Garfield and eventually La’gaan as well) Then, she and Raquel fell into a relationship and she and Artemis became friends again, but she and M’gann didn’t really have anything to fall back on it. She’s closer to M’gann than she is to like, Wally or something, but not nearly as close as she is to Raquel or Artemis, or even Robin.

“Why do you ask?” Zatanna asks, once she realizes that Dinah hasn’t clarified.

“Well,” Dinah says, “what I’m about to suggest requires that you two are comfortable with each other. If you don’t trust each other completely, then I couldn’t suggest it in good conscious.”

“I trust everyone on the Team completely,” Zatanna says honestly. Even Wally who she has always kind of resented, and the newbies who haven’t been on the Team very long. She would trust any of her teammates with her life.

“Okay, good,” Dinah says, clasping her hands together, “that will make this more palatable. I know that some people aren’t as comfortable with telepathy and mindmelds as others are.”

“My idea is for you and M’gann to search through your memories for the one that triggered this fear,” Dinah says, “then, you can confront it and learn what it is. Then we can work from there.”

“You want M’gann and I to take a scenic tour of my brain?” Zatanna asks cautiously. Letting M’gann and the rest of the gang into her brain through the psychic link is one thing. They only hear what she wants them to hear, and brief flashes of strong emotions She mainly has control over that connection. She doesn’t feel too uncomfortable with that. This? This sounds different. She doesn’t know if she wants M’gann to know everything about her. Sure, she trusts her, but there are things that are private. Feelings, thoughts, moments. She doesn’t want to make these things public, even if she trusts the other person.

“The other option is to have sessions with me until we can find and address the core of the issue. You will not, of course, be allowed back into the field until I can give an honest psych eval that promises you are fit for active duty.”

“Wait,” Zatanna says, “you’re pulling me from missions?” Zatanna had thought that this therapy session had been perfunctory. She didn’t think that the League was actually questioning whether or not she was fit for active duty.

“Not forever,” Dinah promises, which is the opposite of what she wanted to hear. That was a confirmation that they’re pulling her from active duty.

“It was NOT that bad,” Zatanna says.

“You froze up,” Dinah says, “Raquel had to fly you out of the situation. You could have died, and you put the whole team in danger.”

“Ventriloquist isn’t that dangerous,” Zatanna says, “they would not have actually been hurt worrying about me.”

“We don’t know, because Raquel got you out. What would have happened, if you had gone on a mission with just you and Nightwing and Artemis?” They could have ended up dead, if Artemis and Dick had had to focus on keeping her safe as opposed to defeating Ventriloquist.

“Alright,” Zatanna says, “I see your point.” She holds her hands together, and leans forward and her knees.

“I want to try that thing with M’gann,” Zatanna says, “we can go through my memories and try to figure out what happened. Then we can try to combat this.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Dinah promises her.

 

M’gann agrees to do it immediately. She doesn’t act like a cheerleader right out of a high school sitcom anymore, but she still wants to help people. Even in the aftermath of her breakup with Conner, she’s still willing to help Zatanna with his. Zatanna appreciates it.

 

They agree to do it Zatanna’s room, and M’gann looks a little surprised when she walks in.

“Are you surprised by the flag?” Zatanna asks. She knows that M’gann’s not homophobic, but she’s also straight. Straight people never really seem to get why having pride items is so important to gay people.

 “No, but I’m of surprised you don’t have a rainbow bedspread,” M’gann says with a little, knowing grin. Zatanna smiles.

“It’s still a gay one,” Zatanna assures her, “it’s the lesbian flag colors.” M’gann sends her a soft smile at that. Zatanna sits down at the end of her bed, and M’gann looks awkwardly between the bed and the swivel office chair.

“Should I?”

“You can sit on the bed,” Zatanna tells her. M’gann sits down beside her, and takes a moment to regain her composure.

“So,” M’gann says, “what exactly was it you wanted to do?” Zatanna explains the memories that Black Canary wanted her to look for.

“Ah,” M’gann says, “that we can do.” Suddenly Zatanna is in her family home. She sees a younger version of herself, and is suddenly struck with how cute younger her was. She doesn’t know if that’s narcissistic or not. The younger her is six years old, probably, maybe seven, and she’s playing with a marionette. Zatanna flinches back, and M’gann puts a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s alright,” she tells her, “it’s just a memory.”

“I don’t remember having a marionette,” Zatanna says softly. She doesn’t remember ever liking puppets, but this little version of her seems to be enchanted with the puppet. She’s making the little, wooden woman dance around on the coffee table, and her father smiles at her.

“Zatanna,” he says, “would you like to see a show with your puppets?” Tiny Zatanna smiles. She carries her puppet over to hug her father’s leg, then he smiles at her as he picks her up. Then, he kisses her forehead. Zatanna feels tears welling in her eyes.

“Can we fast forward?” she asks M’gann, her voice shaky.

 

The scenery changes, and soon they are sitting in the audience of a large, intricate puppet show. Zatanna looks at the seat in front of her instead of at the hideous little puppets, and listens to the silly little voices as M’gann forces the memory to go faster. Zatanna sees the house lights go up and hears the applause die down. She’s a stage performer, and she knows that means that the stage has been vacated. She looks up and sees a whole lot of nothing on the stage. She sighs in relief at the lack of puppets.

 

Then she looks closer at her younger self and her not Nabu controlled father. Her smaller self is grinning from ear to ear, and telling her father all about how much she enjoyed the show.

“Would you like to go back?” he asks her softly, like it’s something that they really shouldn’t do but are going to do anyways. Small Zatanna smiles even wider.

“Yes!” she squeals in her high, little kid voice.

Giovanni leads her backstage, and tells her, “Go talk to him. Maybe he will let you see the puppets.” Zatanna and M’gann follow the smaller version of Zatanna backstage, and down a dark hallway. She ends up coming to the end of the darkened hallway to an open, ill-lit door.

A bloody corpse falls to the ground in the doorway, and a man wielding a knife looms over her tiny, trembling form. It takes her a moment, but she recognizes him as the puppeteer from the stage.

“Oh god,” Zatanna murmurs. The man looks surprised for a moment, then his look turns determined as he grabs her. He holds her tiny body, and holds the knife above her like he’s going to slit her tiny little throat. A bright light appears in between Zatanna and her younger self. Her father appears in a burst of flame, a possessed look on his face.

“Hampton,” he shouts, feral rage in his voice. The man does not lets go of little Zatanna.

“Jo-vanni,” he says, trying his hardest to pronounce the name properly but forgetting to re-enunciate the n, “it’s not what it looks like.” Her father stands straight and imposing, like an angel of vengeance. He’s no longer surrounded by fire, but the fire has remained in his eyes. She has never seen her father look so terrifying. Tiny little Zatanna looks confused about who to fear. Her father speaks a spell, and the murderer is thrown roughly against the wall.

“Daddy,” tiny Zatanna says. Her father doesn’t seem to notice she even spoke. Flames spit from his fingers, and he is looking at the murderer with a look of pure disgust.

“Monster,” he says, voice so full of rage it seems like it has come from hell itself, “you killed that man, and you were going to kill my daughter.”

“I wasn’t gonna kill her,” he says, kill and her running together like killer, “honest.” Zatanna knows that’s a lie. She saw him hold a knife to her throat, but she can’t help feeling a little bad for him. This is terrifying.

“You are not fit to live as a human,” he growls, “let string and wood claim you forever.” The trembling man turns into a tiny marionette, and falls to the ground. The tiny Zatanna looks to the figure in horror, then she picks it up and turns it around in her hands.

“What did you- what is he?” she demands. He tries to pick her up, and she starts crying and trying to flail out of his grasp.

“Zatanna, please. Look at me.” She turns away and refuses to look at him.

“Tegrof, tegrof, dna peels.” She falls asleep in his arms, and Zatanna herself feels numb. M’gann touches her shoulder, and pulls them out of them memory. Suddenly, they are sitting at the foot of her bed once more. Zatanna can normally process her emotions, but now she feels overwhelmed, like she’s been thrown overboard with no life jacket miles from shore. She hasn’t felt this overloaded since she lost her father, and god it just feels like everything is falling apart and she can feel her breath increase like the air is thinning in the room and it feels like the walls are closing in and-

“Zatanna?” M’gann asks gently in her mind, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, “are you alright?” Zatanna laughs bitterly, and it comes out a little hysterical. M’gann looks concerned.

“Alright?”

“I’m sorry,” M’gann says, “I worded that badly.”

“You think?” she asks, her voice coming out crueler than she’d meant. It’s not M’gann’s fault that everything Zatanna knew just exploded on her. M’gann draws her into a hug, and Zatanna melts into it. After realizing she was gay all those years ago, she’s always been a little cautious about initiating physical contact with her straight female friends. But as soon as the hug comes, she realizes how much that she’s missed it. She needs it right now.

 “He turned someone into a puppet,” she says, “and then he- he _mindwiped_ me.” M’gann doesn’t say anything, just keeps holding her.

“I don’t even know if I can be pissed about this!” Zatanna says, “he’s gone now, and I just- I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this.” It feels like Zatanna’s world view is the walls of Jericho and has come crumbling down. The hug finally breaks, and M’gann sends her a sympathetic look.

“I miss my dad,” she says, which feels like the understatement of the century, “but after this, I just- I don’t know where we stood to begin with. I don’t know if I could trust him if he came back.” She feels dirty for even thinking it, but the truth is that Zatanna doesn’t feel secure in her memories of her father anymore. Everything feels tainted.

“I think you might be overreacting,” M’gann says gently.

“Overreacting?”

“I mean the mindwipe thing,” M’gann says, “the experience traumatic, but was the mindwipe so bad? It made it so you didn’t have that traumatic memory. Was that really the wrong call?”

“Yeah, M’gann,” she says, “you don’t _mindwipe_ your daughter. That’s- that’s so fucked up. I don’t even know where to start.” Zatanna doesn’t know how she feels about any of this. She witnessed a murder, almost was murdered, watched her father turn a man into a puppet and then mindwipe her. And all of this happened years ago, and she can’t even confront her father about this. Because he’s gone and it’s her fault and now those two traumas are melding together in her mind to the point where she can’t even properly separate them.

She should have had years to process this experience, but now the weight of it is hitting her like a tidal wave.

“Mindwiping isn’t inherently bad though,” M’gann says. Zatanna can see her point, at least. M’gann has been given free rein to do things like that. Zatanna thinks about all of the people that M’gann has mindwiped, and thinks of the few that she has. She had thought that it was alright, but now she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know if she can even condone doing this to criminals anymore.

“Come on, Zatanna,” M’gann says, “it isn’t wrong to mindwipe criminals. That’s _right._ ” M’gann has always had a strong idea of right and wrong, but it always included a degree of _justice_. M’gann’s justice was always the biblical, Old Testament sort. Turning people to salt for looking at God’s face, Psymon’s mind turned to pudding for harming her friends, or, Zatanna thinks hollowly turning a man to a puppet for nearly murdering a child. M’gann’s justice seems more like vengeance at times, and Zatanna had never considered it more deeply before. Now that she is though, she can’t stop. She doesn’t think that she can have this conversation right now with M’gann, or she might say things she will regret,  

“That is so fucked up,” Zatanna says, “I can’t even deal with this right now.”

“You’ve done it too,” M’gann says, “you don’t get to get up on your high horse about this. You’ve mindwiped villains too.” And then thing is, Zatanna _has_. She hasn’t done it as much as M’gann has, but she’d one it. She feels dirty about it now. She doesn’t think that it was right anymore.

“Look,” Zatanna says, “I don’t know how I feel about that. But what my dad did? That was wrong. You don’t mindwipe your family. Not people that you love.” She doesn’t really want to think about her dad doing bad things, but he did. M’gann looks ready to protest, but then she bites back the words. She looks guilty, and Zatanna realizes what she’s about to say.

She’s mindwiped someone she loves before, someone who probably found out. Someone who she might not be on good terms with at the moment.

“That’s why Conner broke up with you, isn’t it?” Zatanna says. M’gann looks away in response, which is all the confirmation that Zatanna needs.

“You _mindwiped_ him!”

“It wasn’t a wipe,” M’gann says, like fucking with his brain is perfectly reasonable as long as it’s not complete, “I just- I, well. He didn’t approve of how I was using my powers. I thought that if he didn’t remember what made him so angry, it would make things easier.” M’gann only looks a little embarrassed, and it makes Zatanna feel dirty.

“Does the rest of the Team know?” Zatanna asks. She knows that the original six are close. She couldn’t see M’gann and Conner being able to keep this a secret from the rest of them.

“No,” M’gann says hastily, “you won’t tell them, right?”

“You gonna mindwipe me too?” Zatanna asks.

“Zatanna-“

“I’m _glad_ Conner broke up with you,” Zatanna says, “at least he’s safe from you now.”

“I would _never_ do that,” M’gann says. And Zatanna wants to believe her, she does. M’gann is her friend. They’ve been through a lot together, and she wants to be able to trust her. But she wants to be able to trust her dad too, and she doesn’t think either of those are happening any time soon.

“Zee, please,” M’gann says. Zatanna doesn’t like any of this. She thinks that the rest of the Team deserves to know what’s going on, but she doesn’t know if she can bring herself to do it. She can also see that M’gann is afraid of the information getting out, which means that she understands that she did something wrong. Maybe she’ll come to the right conclusion on her own. Zatanna thinks that would be more effective than making her deal with the information in front of the whole Team, newbies included.

“You’re my friend, so I won’t tell anyone,” Zatanna says, and M’gann smiles, “but I’m not working with you anymore. I’m going to join the Justice League.” There has been an open invitation for the oldest members of the Team to join the League for the past year, and they had decided none of them would take it until after college.

“Zee-“

“M’gann,” she says, “I’m sorry. I’m still your friend I just- I can’t work with you anymore. I can’t condone that.”

“Is there any way I can get you not to?” M’gann asks.

“Are you going to stop mindwiping people?” Zatanna asks. She takes M’gann’s silence as a no.

“Then I’m joining the League,” she says.

“I don’t like it,” M’gann says, “but I can’t stop it.” _You could if you stopped_ , Zatanna doesn’t say.

Instead she says, “thanks” the way that she does at the end of a conversation with a heated argument about politics that she knows she can’t win and isn’t worth pursuing any longer. M’gann takes that as the hint that it is, and gets off of Zatanna’s bed. She walks towards the door, and then turns back to face Zatanna, as if she just remembered something she forgot to say.

“Are you going to take Raquel with you?” M’gann says, sounding bitterer than she normally does.

“Raquel’ll do what she wants,” Zatanna says, smiling, “she always does.” Raquel is somehow both the best and worst at taking orders, just depending on how much she agrees with them and how much input she had in them. M’gann nods, and then she opens the door and leaves Zatanna alone her room.

 

Alone with the suffocating emotions, but at least she lives in age where she doesn’t have to be alone alone. She grabs her phone off of her nightstand, and calls Raquel. Her girlfriend answers immediately.

  
“Babe?” Raquel asks, “you alright?”

“No, not really. Can we talk?” She can hear Raquel shifting her phone to a more comfortable position on her face.

“Of course, babe. I always have time for you.” Zatanna laughs happily. Raquel can be a little sappy, but the sap is all genuine. Zatanna appreciates it.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Of course you do,” Raquel says, “I’m wonderful. Now talk to me.” Zatanna does.

 

They get everything figured out, or at least as figured out as it’s going to get. Zatanna still doesn’t know how to feel about her memories. She’s still processing, and she’s still angry but not as angry as she was to begin with. They talk about mindwiping, and Zatanna doesn’t tell her about what happened with Conner. And eventually, Raquel tells her that she was thinking about breaking the pact by herself and she’s glad that they can do that together now instead of her trying to break the news to everyone all by herself. They like being on the same team, and they always have.

Then she gets a follow up meeting set up with Black Canary, and she finds herself once again in her office.

“M’gann and I figured out the problem,” Zatanna says. She tells the tale of her memory, and Dinah actually looks surprised. Dinah’s not surprised by anything.

“Well,” she says, “that’s more extensive that I expected.” Zatanna laughs.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Dinah says, “I think if you agree to come to therapy sessions with me, we can have you cleared for active duty again within the week.” Zatanna sighs in relief. Being benched was really starting to bore her.

“I actually wanted to talk about the active duty thing,” Zatanna says.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to take you guys up on your offer. Well, both Raquel and I do. Not just me.”

“You want to join the Justice League?” Dinah asks. She sounds surprised, and Zatanna doesn’t blame her. The Team had made it fairly obvious that they weren’t interesting in joining the League yet, even if the offer was open.

“Well,” she says, “we’d love to have you. Can I ask what prompted this?”

“Just needed a change of scenery,” she says.

“Uh huh,” Dinah says. She doesn’t sound like she’s going to pry though.

"Thank you, Dinah," Zatanna says. 

"I hope that you aren't having problems with your old scenery," Dinah says, "getting into fights with the wildlife or something." Zatanna rolls her eyes. 

"It's alright, I promise," she says, "we just need a change." Dinah doesn't look convinced, but she doesn't take it any further. 

"Alright," she says, "I'll clear you, and we'll get everything taken care of. Welcome to the League." Zatanna smiles. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i think that m'gann's s2 issues were addressed really well in the show and i love that she was allowed to have such deep flaws! i want you to know i'm not trying to villainize m'gann i'm just working with aspects of her character that worked best for the fic


End file.
